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Greek: Lexicons and Dictionaries

This research guide lists resources for Greek, primarily but not limited to biblical Greek. Some related resources appear in the New Testament guide and not here, such as theological dictionaries.

Greek Lexicons and Dictionaries

This page lists lexicons and dictionaries for Greek, including New Testament Greek, Patristic Greek, Septuagint Greek, and Classical Greek.

Theological dictionaries, such as Kittel’s TDNT, are in the New Testament research guide as they are not primarily about Greek per se.

General Greek Tools

New Testament (Koine) Greek

Greek of the Septuagint

Most Greek lexicons in our collection focus on Koine Greek. These include more vocabulary as the Septuagint has far more words.

Patristic Greek

There is only one well-known lexicon for Patristic Greek, which is listed below. While biblical vocabulary was certainly used by the Church Fathers, their literature has a much wider vocabulary.

Non-Biblical Greek

To understand the world of the Septuagint, New Testament, and Patristic literature, it is essential to be able to work with contemporary Greco-Roman sources. These works are for Greek that overlaps or includes new biblical Greek but has a wider focus.

Beware of These Lexicons!

Older Greek lexicons for the New Testament, e.g., Thayer, Smith, Gingrich, and Souter, while readily available, are not up-to-date enough and/or complete enough to be appropriate for academic work. Do not use such lexicons, unless your research specifically requires an outdated New Testament Greek lexicon.

NT and LXX Analytical Lexicons

The lexicons elsewhere on this page are the tools to use to find the meanings of words. By contrast, analytical lexicons offer only a few glosses for any Greek word. The primary use for an analytical lexicon is to figure out the vocabulary lemma or form from a specific form in the Greek text. Readers are strongly advised to look up the word once it has been found in BDAG, Louw-Nida, Danker's Concise Lexicon, or LSJ..